1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water purifier with an activated carbon filter having a solid block shape. The water purifier concerning the present invention can include water purifiers used for cooking or drinking for ordinary homes, medical offices, restaurants, and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in Japan, water purifiers with a filter using granular activated carbon powder have been widely used for removing disinfectant components, trihalomethanes, and the like by adsorption and chemical reaction. There have been used sintered activated carbon block filters formed by combining with aggregate of the activated carbon powder by sintering.
In U.S.A. advancing informational disclosure, some reports disclose that weakened polio virus, namely, vaccine excreted from a living body, sometimes recovers toxicity when it flows in rivers with feces. In Japan, some reports disclose that in addition to the polio virus, a plurality of fungi abundantly increase in digestive organs—these fungi contain six groups of coxsackie virus, ecology virus, infectious hepatitis virus, adenovirus, and reovirus. Moreover, U.S.A. has decided removal of viruses such as polio viruses as a standard of water supply. Poliomyelitis have been sometimes detected in some regions such as Russia, South-East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. So, water purifiers are urgently requested which can effectively remove fungi such as polio viruses, with simplicity, usability, and cheapness.
In U.S.A., there have been popular compressed activated carbon block filters having a hollow cylinder shape, which are formed of the mixture mixing activated carbon powder with thermoplastic resin powder. This purpose is to remove protozoa having a size of several tens μm, bacteria, and the like.
According to the sintered activated carbon block filter of the above mention, the water permeable area is considerably small in comparison with the water purifier using a hollow fiber membrane. So, if the pore is set to be small for improving catching ability of the sintered activated carbon block filter, the amount of penetrating water is lowered per unit time at usual water pressure. So, this activated carbon block filter can not be used as a practical water purifier.
Then, according to the sintered activated carbon block filter, it is requested that the particle size of activated carbon powder is set to be large for increasing the amount of penetrating water per unit time. Such case, however, induces the problem that a catching ability is insufficient though the amount of penetrating water is increased per unit time. That is to say, the sintered activated carbon block filter does not catch: (1) “brevundimonas diminuta” (hereinafter it is also referred to as “brevundimonas”) having a diameter of 0.3 μm, being generally used for a bacteria-proof in Japan, and (2) “escherichia coli” having a diameter of 0.65 μm.
Further, the sintered activated carbon block filter does not catch: (1) polio virus having a diameter of 25–35 nm; and (2) “bacteriophage MS-2” being used as a substitution for polio viruses. As above mentioned the conventional water purifiers are insufficient in improving catching ability and water permeability.